Protists include all eukaryotes except plants, fungi and animals. They are an essential, yet
often forgotten, component of the soil microbiome. Method developments have now …

There is increasing awareness that many terrestrial and aquatic organisms are not strictly
heterotrophic or autotrophic but rather mixotrophic. Mixotrophy is an intermediate nutritional …

Many protist plankton are mixotrophs, combining phototrophy and phagotrophy. Their role in
freshwater and marine ecology has emerged as a major developing feature of plankton …

Key steps in evolution are often singularities. The emergence of land plants is one such
case and it is not immediately apparent why. A recent analysis found that the …

While algal phago-mixotrophs play a major role in aquatic microbial food webs, their
diversity remains poorly understood. Recent studies have indicated several species of …

The conversion of free-living cyanobacteria to photosynthetic organelles of eukaryotic cells
through endosymbiosis transformed the biosphere and eventually provided the basis for life …

Microalgae possess diverse applications, such as food production, animal feed, cosmetics,
plastics manufacturing, and renewable energy sources. However, uncontrolled proliferation …

Nonphotosynthetic plastids retain important biological functions and are indispensable for
cell viability. However, the detailed processes underlying the loss of plastidal functions other …

Plant mitochondrial genomes are renowned for their structural complexity, extreme variation
in size and mutation rates, and ability to incorporate foreign DNA. Parasitic flowering plants …

The Earth is a cold place. Most of it exists at or below the freezing point of water. Although
seemingly inhospitable, such extreme environments can harbour a variety of organisms …